Notts Outlaws made it a perfect two wins out of two start to their Friends Life t20 programme when they defeated Yorkshire Carnegie by 53 runs at Trent Bridge.
The home side ran up a total of 215-6, their highest score in the nine years of the competition, before restricting their opponents to a modest 162-8 in reply.
Adam Voges top-scored for the Outlaws with a splendid 74 but it was Samit Patel who claimed the Man of the Match honours, by hitting a quick-fire 52 and then capturing two crucial wickets to de-rail the run chase.
“It’s a really strong top order we’ve assembled this year and it was great to go in after David Hussey had applied so much pressure to the bowlers." Samit Patel
Patel – who batted at number five in the order – paid tribute to those who’d laid the foundations before him.
“It’s a really strong top order we’ve assembled this year and it was great to go in after David Hussey had applied so much pressure to the bowlers,” he said.
“It was just a case then of myself and Adam continuing to keep on top of them.”
The recent England Lion denied his current form was sending out a message to the national selectors.
“I just want to keep on scoring runs and taking wickets for Notts and if anyone was watching, then so be it. I’m quite happy with my form at the moment but want to maintain it throughout the summer.”
Ben Phillips, a runner-up last season with Somerset, aims to go one better this time around. “There’s no doubt this is a really strong side”, he said. “Today the batsman put a really good total on the board and it was just down to us bowlers to execute our skills properly.”
Notts stuck with the same starting eleven that defeated Derbyshire Falcons in their first fixture and batted after David Hussey won the toss.
Riki Wessels (4) and Alex Hales (10) went cheaply but the two Australian stars, Voges and Hussey, ensured that the power-play overs weren’t wasted by bringing up a score of 56-2 at the end of the sixth.
Hussey hit Wainwright to long on to fall for 28 but then a hard-hitting partnership between Voges and Patel followed – eventually reaching 94 for the 4th wicket – from just 7.1 overs.
Voges had reached his fifty from 35 balls (6 x 4, 1 x 6) but was out-gunned by Patel’s savage assault which sped him to his 9th half century in the competition from just 21 balls with 4 fours and 4 sixes.
Both batsmen then fell to Anthony McGrath, as did Steven Mullaney (5) as Notts looked to capitalise towards the end of their innings. Chris Read took 16 from the final over to move on to 34 not out – his third unbeaten score of the week – after 120 v Worcs and 21 v Derbyshire – and helped the side outdo the 213-6 they scored against Northants in 2006.
In reply Yorkshire got their noses ahead early on – reaching 62-1 inside the first 6 overs – Ben Phillips with the wicket of Andrew Gale.
Jonathan Bairstow made 31 and Adam Lyth 43 but the middle order was blown away as Notts removed pace from the ball through Patel and Mullaney – and then re-applied it effectively with Andy Carter dismissing Lyth and McGrath in consecutive deliveries.
Only Rich Pyrah (12) reached double figures after the top 3 had gone, with Pattinson, Phillips, Patel and Carter each collecting two wickets. The out-fielding was again superb, with Mullaney collecting a couple of well-judged catches at long-off, Hussey got two more inside the circle and Scott Elstone also bagged a couple – the first a supreme piece of athleticism on the deep midwicket boundary, leaping high and then maintaining his balance inside the rope to get rid of Gerard Brophy.